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Back in October 2022, when Rishi Sunak took over as British prime minister, he was the fifth UK leader to occupy the position over a six-year span.

Unleashed on the UK by Brexit, this signified unprecedented political turmoil. So how might we describe what is unfolding in the French Republic, now on its sixth premier in 24 months – with three in the past 10 months?

The current premier, the recently reappointed Sébastien Lecornu, may have gained a brief respite on that day, sacrificing Emmanuel Macron’s flagship pensions overhaul in exchange for support from Socialist lawmakers as the cost of his administration's continuation.

But it is, in the best case, a short-term solution. The EU’s number two economic power is locked in a political permacrisis, the scale of which it has not experienced for decades – perhaps not since the establishment of its Fifth Republic in 1958 – and from which there seems no simple way out.

Minority Rule

Essential context: from the moment Macron called an ill-advised snap general election in 2024, the nation has had a hung parliament separated into three warring blocs – left, far right and his own centre-right alliance – none with anything close to a majority.

Simultaneously, the country faces dual debt and deficit crises: its debt-to-GDP ratio and deficit are now nearly double the EU threshold, and strict legal timelines to approve a 2026 budget that at least begins to rein in spending are approaching.

In this challenging environment, both the prime ministers before Lecornu – Michel Barnier, who lasted from September to December 2024, and François Bayrou, who held the position from December 2024 to September 2025 – were removed by parliament.

In September, the leader named his trusted associate Lecornu as his latest PM. But when, a little over two weeks ago, Lecornu unveiled his new cabinet – which turned out to be largely unchanged from before – he faced fury from both supporters and rivals.

So much so that the next day, he resigned. After just 27 days in office, Lecornu became the briefest-serving prime minister in recent French history. In a dignified speech, he blamed political intransigence, saying “party loyalties” and “personal ambitions” would make his job virtually unworkable.

Another twist in the tale: shortly after Lecornu’s resignation, Macron asked him to stay on for another 48 hours in a last-ditch effort to secure multi-party support – a task, to put it gently, not without complications.

Next, two ex-prime ministers openly criticized the embattled president. Meanwhile, the right-wing RN and radical left France Unbowed (LFI) declined to engage with Lecornu, vowing to reject all future administrations unless there were snap elections.

Lecornu persisted in his duties, engaging with all willing listeners. At the end of his 48 hours, he appeared on television to say he believed “a path still existed” to avoid elections. The president’s office confirmed the president would name a fresh premier 48 hours later.

Macron kept his promise – and on that Friday appointed … Sébastien Lecornu, again. So recently – with Macron helpfully sniping from the sidelines that the country’s rival political parties were “fuelling division” and “solely responsible for this chaos” – was Lecornu’s critical test. Could he survive – and is he able to approve the crucial budget?

In a critical address, the young prime minister outlined his financial plans, giving the centre-left Socialist party (PS), who oppose Macron’s controversial pension changes, what they were expecting: Macron’s flagship reform would be suspended until 2027.

With the right-wing LR already supportive, the Socialists said they would not back censorship votes tabled against Lecornu by the far right and radical left – meaning the administration would likely endure those ballots, due on Thursday.

It is, nevertheless, by no means certain to be able to approve its €30bn austerity budget: the PS explicitly warned that it would be demanding further compromises. “This move,” said its leader, Olivier Faure, “is only the beginning.”

Changing Political Culture

The issue is, the more Lecornu cedes to the centre-left, the more he will meet resistance from the centre-right. And, like the PS, the conservatives are themselves split on dealing with the administration – some are still itching to topple it.

A glance at the parliamentary arithmetic shows how difficult his mission – and future viability – will be. A total of 264 deputies from the far-right RN, radical-left LFI, Greens, Communists and hardline-right UDR want him out.

To achieve that, they need a majority of 288 votes in parliament – so if they can convince only 24 of the PS’s 69 deputies or the LR’s 47 representatives (or both) to vote with them, Macron’s fifth precarious prime minister in two years is, like his predecessors, toast.

Most expect this to occur soon. Although, by some miracle, the dysfunctional assembly summons up the collective responsibility to pass a budget by year-end, the outlook afterward look bleak.

So is there a way out? Early elections would be unlikely to solve the problem: polls suggest pretty much every party bar the RN would lose seats, but there would remain no decisive majority. A new prime minister would face the same intractable arithmetic.

An alternative might be for Macron himself to resign. After a presidential vote, his replacement would disband the assembly and hope to secure a parliamentary majority in the ensuing legislative vote. But this also remains unclear.

Polls suggest the future president will be Le Pen or Bardella. There is at least an odds-on chance that France’s voters, having chosen a far-right leader, might reconsider giving them parliamentary power.

In the end, France may not escape its predicament until its leaders accept the new political reality, which is that decisive majorities are a bygone phenomenon, winner-takes-all no longer applies, and negotiation doesn't mean defeat.

Many think that cultural shift will not be feasible under the country’s current constitution. “This is no conventional parliamentary crisis, but a crise de régime” that will prove anything but temporary.

“The regime … was never designed to facilitate – and even disincentivizes – the emergence of governing coalitions common in the rest of Europe. The Fifth Republic may well have entered its terminal phase.”